Like a new outbreak of an old rash, the unpleasant rhetoric of placing tolls on the East River Bridges has sprung up, yet again, thanks to a fee-crazed and cash-strapped Metropolitan Transit Authority.

While everyone can appreciate the dire financial straits this city is in, squeezing the remaining pennies from the public isn’t the answer, and quite frankly, you can’t get blood from a stone.

Installing tolls on the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges places a burden squarely - as well as unfairly - on the citizens of Brooklyn and Queens.

It is precisely this war on the working class that has forced scores of fed-up, picked-clean New Yorkers to flee to more affordable states, such as New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, for the past three decades.

We are already the highest-taxed citizens in the nation with the highest rents and the highest cost of living. Simply stated, the public can’t bear any more abuse.

In addition, the possibility of double-digit increases in subway and bus fares adds insult to injury.

Is there no respite for the working class?

And once again, it is a crisis surrounding Wall Street that is the reason everyday New Yorkers will be asked to pay more while receiving less.

These thoughtless “solutions” to the bleak economy take a reprehensible stab at the pockets of those who work the hardest for this city.